Tiskara Zelina began to modernise its entire production set-up in 2018. Important boosts in terms of quality and productivity can be attributed to a Rapida 105 PRO from Koenig & Bauer. When Croatia joined the European Union in 2013, this heralded a new wave of economic development in the country, which has in turn contributed to sustainable growth.
The national print industry has also benefitted, and has invested massively in the optimisation of its production processes over the past couple of years. This has been especially true for commercial printing company Tiskara Zelina. The centrepiece of an ambitious investment package is a new Rapida 105 PRO from Koenig & Bauer, with which the company has significantly improved its position on the Croatian market.
Following the commissioning of the Rapida 105 PRO, the 90 employees at Tiskara Zelina already achieved an increase in turnover of between 20 and 30 per cent in 2019 alone. “We are now planning to maintain this growth in the coming years,” says managing director Tanja Hasan Lemić. “Perhaps not on the same scale as 2019, but we will certainly be continuing along the same path.”
The company has identified especially promising opportunities in its export business – the current export share of 10 per cent is to be increased successively in the future. The product portfolio ranges from hard-cover and paperback books to calendars, brochures, catalogues and posters. Thanks to its in-house finishing department, Tiskara Zelina is able to react flexibly to market demands and can even take on last-minute jobs.
As a longstanding customer of Koenig & Bauer, the company was well aware of the benefits to be derived from the technical further development of the Rapida series, and here specifically of the Rapida 105 PRO. The configuration chosen was a four-colour press with inline coater, and the managing director points not least to the excellent price-performance ratio of the latest press generation.
“The Rapida 105 PRO has catapulted us into a different league.” This is immediately clear from a comparison of makeready times with a slowly ageing four-colour Rapida 105 perfector dating from 2008. “On the Rapida 105 PRO, the first saleable sheet comes off the press between 25 and 50 per cent faster, irrespective of the format.”
The fully automatic FAPC plate changing system, with which all four plates are changed in no more than two minutes, is a decisive factor in this respect. Paper travel settings from the feeder to the delivery are also implemented fully automatically parallel to plate changing. Thanks to the preset capabilities of the feeder, the relevant parameters for sheet format and the air controls can be taken directly from the console – something which greatly simplifies the processing of its broad substrate spectrum for Tiskara Zelina.
Optimised inking units are one of the keys to the outstanding print quality achieved by the Rapida 105 PRO. Further time is saved in daily practice through the possibility for simultaneous washing of the blankets and impression cylinders between jobs. “Our printers appreciate not only the high level of automation on the Rapida 105 PRO, but also the modules serving quality control,” says Tajana Hasan Lemić.
The Rapida 105 PRO installed at Tiskara Zelina incorporates an additional anilox coating tower to accelerate the drying process and to bring the printed sheets into corresponding shape for further processing immediately after printing. The coater also supports the general trend towards increased product refinement, an aspect to which Tanja Hasan Lemić will be paying special attention in the future as a means to expand into new market segments.
The press is controlled and monitored centrally from the ErgoTronic console. A wallscreen presents all press settings to the operator in a clear overview, and a live image mode even enables evaluation of the current inking results via the QualiTronic ColorControl module. “We are convinced that the Rapida 105 PRO from Koenig & Bauer is the ideal press for us, both technically and from the perspective of maintenance.” A regional service team guarantees fast reaction times and gives the company the necessary peace of mind.
